LIZZY IS IN BRISBANE THIS WEEK IN BERYL MORTIMERS LUSH GARDEN. GOOBURRAS IN THE TREES AND PARROTS . VINES TWISTING ROUND THE RAILS OF THE STEPS AND A METAL GARDEN SETTING UNDER THE NUT TREE. WEEKEND SHE WAS DOWN IN BILAMBIL WITH THE GRASS NEAR AS HIGH AS HER MIDDLE AND TREES REACHING ACROSS THE BACKROADS TO TOUCH OVER TELEPHONE WIRES. ASHA HAS HAD ANOTHER SNAKE IN HER GARDEN TODAY. THATS 2 IN 2 DAYS THE TROPICS ARE ON US AND THEY ARE LUSH !

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In the garden the door is always open into the “holy” – growth, birth, death. Every flower holds the whole mystery in its short cycle, and in the gardenwe are never far away from death, the fertilizing, good, creative death.– May Sarton

Should I pluck it,
My hands
Would defile the flower;
I offer it, as it stands,
To the Buddhas of the Three Worlds.– Empress Komyo, Japan

An ant guarding a mango

Used for a boy who is careful not to let other boys near his girlfriend

4000 BCE

“As in the case of the cereals, the legumes are amongst the oldest crops cultivated by the human race. Between the cereals and legumes there is a parallel domestication: wheat, barley, pea, lentil, broad bean, and chick pea in West Asia and Europe; maize and common bean in Central America; ground nut in South America; pearl millet, sorghum, cowpea, and bambara groundnut in Africa; rice and soya bean in China.” – – The New Oxford Book of Food Plants, xviii, 1997, by J. G . Vaughan and C. A. Geissler.

My love you, my grandchildren. Come over and sit by the mango tree. I have a question I want to ask it.

“O beautiful mango tree who gives us such refreshing shade, do you have peace? If you do, could you teach us how to have peace? You seem so cool and tranquil. What makes you this way? Can you tell us?”

“I am a member of the tree family, and you are human beings. I do not know if you can understand our peace. Even though God has given you judgment, subtle wisdom, analytic wisdom, and divine luminous wisdom, you also have qualities that cause you to take our fruits, cut us down, and destroy us.

“If you want to attain peace, do not cut down a tree, whether it is useful to you or not. And don’t cut down a man, whether he does good deeds or bad. If, because of your pride or selfishness, you think about taking revenge or deceiving and ruining another person, or of making another man suffer in any way, that will destroy your peace. It is your own state of mind that will destroy your peace. But if you can avoid bad thoughts, then you can be happy and peaceful. This is my advice to you.

Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.– Bill Vaughan

Hui Tzu said to Chuang Tzu: “I have a big stinktree in my garden. The trunk is so bent and knotty that nobody can get a good straight plank out of it. The branches are so crooked you can’t cut them up in any way that makes sense. There it stands beside the road and no carpenter will even look at it. Such is your teaching, Chuang – big and useless.”
Chuang Tzu replied: “Have you ever watched the wildcat crouching, watching its prey? This way it leaps, and that way,
high and low, and at last – it lands in the trap. Have you ever seen the yak? It is great as a thundercloud, standing in his might.
Big? Sure. But, he can’t catch mice! So for your big tree. No use? Then plant it in the wasteland – in emptiness. Walk idly around it and rest under it’s shadow. No axe or saw prepares its end. No one will ever cut it down. Useless? You should worry!.
– Chuang Tzu, The Useless Tree, circa 200 B.C..